Doug Wilson has always been good at providing the money quote and he gave another one in his most recent Sharks' elegy.

"To our organization and to our fans, this is not a nick or a scratch," Wilson said. "This is an open wound."

He's right, of course. This is the most bloody, painful and deep of all the Sharks' playoff failures. Taking a seemingly insurmountable 3-0 lead over their archrivals, the Los Angeles Kings, the Sharks quickly were surmounted. They lost four straight, including two at home on the supposedly magical home ice that they had worked so hard to secure.

Unlike the Warriors in Game 6, the Sharks - in their final games - showed virtually no fight, little toughness and zero killer instinct or desperation. Instead, on power play after power play, they piddled around looking for the perfect shot, coming up with zero. Their best players vanished. They silenced their own crowd. It was an absolute, unwatchable mess.

And it can't simply be discarded to the dustbin of historical losses because we've seen it far too often from the Sharks. Not in this monumental, infamous way, but the same old story.

So the question becomes: What do the Sharks do about it?

The popular choice, it seems among the knee-jerk faction, is to fire coach Todd McLellan. But from this vantage point, McLellan is about 87th on the list of problems. He's considered one of the brightest minds in hockey and there are plenty of teams that are hoping the Sharks choose to blame him for all the problems and fire him. He'd be out of work for about 90 minutes.

Don't forget that once upon a time Darryl Sutter was deemed to be the root of the Sharks' problems. That would be the same mastermind who coached the Kings to a Stanley Cup two years ago and vanquished the Sharks last week.

The NHL culture loves nothing better than the blame-the-coach game, but it's too easy. As is the blame-the-goalie game. Antti Niemi has frustrated his bosses and fans at times this season, without frustrating enough opponents. But, while Niemi may indeed not be back in San Jose, anyone with two eyes can see that the problem goes far, far beyond the guy in the net.

It's all about the guys playing in front of Niemi.

Sharks players simply do not fight hard enough in the spring. They put together good seasons, year in and year out, and make the playoffs. But they don't step up their game to the raw, savage intensity level required to advance to the NHL's annual war of attrition.

There's a huge problem with that ongoing pattern.

First of all, it means the Sharks are assembled for the enjoyment of 17,566 people. The hockey capacity at SAP Center is 17,562, and those ticket holders are the ones who enjoy the Sharks' regular-season prowess the most. Television ratings for and interest level in the Sharks are almost nonexistent in the months leading up to the playoffs: the Bay Area is too consumed with the NFL, the NBA and even baseball spring training to care about the Sharks.

But those hard-core fans who pack the building bring in the money, which brings us to the extra four in the above equation. That's the Sharks' four-man ownership group, who make money off that full building, the T-shirt sales and concessions. They are led by Hasso Plattner, and I imagine he's beginning to realize that April and May hockey is far more important than October and November hockey.

And if the Sharks don't figure out what to do in the spring, their profit margins in the fall and winter could be at risk. Yes, even among the forgiving San Jose fan base, the exasperation seems near a breaking point.

Wilson said he would meet with Plattner in a week or two with his recommendations. And if he's being honest, Wilson knows the analysis has to begin with himself. He is the one who continues to assemble this group of regular-season world-beaters who vanish in the playoffs.

Many thought this team was better and grittier, because of the belief it was becoming more Logan Couture's and Marc-Edouard Vlasic's team and less Patrick Marleau's and Joe Thornton's team. But Couture didn't play well, Vlasic was hurt and Joe Pavelski looked exhausted after his long, Olympic-interrupted season. Nasty Raffi Torres was playing at a fraction of his full ability. And so it gets back to the same guys it always does.

When I talked to Wilson at the trade deadline, he was congratulating himself for having re-signed Marleau and Thornton to three-year contract extensions, ensuring continuity for a team that was doing well back then. It saved him the desperate scramble to get something for the stars before they walked out the door as free agents.

After the late April vanishing act, that doesn't look like such a great deal. Now the Sharks have locked up the two players, giving both no-trade clauses, until they are 37 years old. Captain Thornton and alternate captain Marleau aren't responsible for all the team's failures, but they have been the core and focal point of the underachieving squad for far, far too long. Now, they're still going to be the focus but a lot older.

Wilson needs to listen to McLellan and his staff - McLellan has clearly been frustrated with many players who are too set in their ways. They need to get some more grit and guts on the roster.

They need something.

"We will make some decisions going forward," Wilson said. "There are options. Status quo is not one of them."